I recently purchased off of Ebay what was advertised a "pure" linotype. After receiving it I did, as I always do when purchasing of Ebay, some checking of the product. The BHN was 16.9. I verified the accuracy of my instrument against a known sample. Now we know that pure linotype is about 22 BHN. You could probably still get away with the pure if it was 21. It is brittle like linotype. But this is not pure linotype. So I contacted the seller and he offered a return. But since this is a 24 pound bar I really was not interested in returning it. I asked him to correct his description on Ebay and he removed the word pure. But since it still said linotype I left a neutral comment saying tested below 17 and was not linotype.
Now to the guy's credit he did offer a return and said that he had bought a print shop and was told the bars were pure linotype.
But to my question. I now have 24 pounds of mystery metal that I would like to know the composition of. Is there anyone I can send it to to have it tested to find the composition?